Creative Sound Blaster Audigy4 Pro Sound Card: Nothing New?. Page 4

Creative Labs released their Sound Blaster Audigy4 Pro sound card and we couldn’t miss the opportunity to take a closer look at it. Do you think you need to upgrade your Audigy2 now that the new card is out? Read our article before you make the decision. It may save you some money ;)

Software Bundle

The sound card is bundled with a huge software package containing four CD disks:

Installation and Application CD;

Creative DVD-Audio Sampler Disc;

CD-disk with special musical software:

Cubase LE;

FL Studio 4 CE;

DVD-disk with full versions of the games:

Thief: Deadly Shadows;

Hitman: Contracts.

The list of software components

The software installation takes about 15 minutes. After that you will need to restart the system, so that the changes could get into effect. From then on you have access to Creative’s brand name software package, which you are very unlikely to be willing to update. The thing is that the company doesn’t support “hot” updates, when the user can copy a small digital file upon request. Instead of this, Creative is offering pretty large files, which you will have to download. I don’t think you will be bale to find out how useful or useless they are before you actually download them. This is one of the questions the users would keep asking in Creative forums as well as the request to make something similar to Live Update system, which could save the users a lot of time and trouble.

Well, if they do something about it, you will definitely be the first one to know. And now let’s take a closer look at the main software components we have just installed:

Surround Mixer: Basic settings

Surround Mixer: Advanced settings

The standard mixer page is split into two parts: basic settings, where you can adjust different Ins and Outs, and advanced settings, where you can adjust the volume levels for acoustic system components.

THX Setup Console

THX Setup console is an individual application. This control system is almost identical to the Speaker Settings utility, however, it offers much finer tuning options for the acoustic system. As you can see, there are three sections here: Speaker Selection, Calibration and Bass Management. On the first page the users selects the type of the acoustic system, indicates the location of the central satellite (relative to the monitor), tests the connected equipment, etc. In the second page, Calibration, you can set precisely the location of all acoustic system components by outing in their distance, height and angle relative to the listening center. Here you will have to be patient and motivated to do something with your own hands :)